Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, although the feat lures around 50,000 trekkers per year, is no easy one. At 5896m’s, the iconic Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is Africa’s highest mountain as well as the world’s highest free standing mountain. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro offers intrepid explorers a challenging and exhilarating adventure.

"The Roof of Africa", Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania

Mount Kilimanjaro is a place of myth and folklore. Situated just 325km’s from the equator, the mountain defies logic with its snow-capped peaks and its three volcanic cones – Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira. The Uhuru Peak, being the highest summit of Kibo’s crator rim, is where thousands of trekkers have stood above Africa.

Mount Kilimanjaro rises from cultivated farmlands on the lower levels, through lush rainforest, which is home to much wildlife, to alpine meadows, and finally across a barren lunar landscape to the twin summits of Kibo and Mawenzi. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro offers the opportunity to spot buffaloes, elephants, leopards and monkeys in the lower levels.

Traversing your way up one of the greatest natural wonders of the world feels like hiking from the equator to the North Pole, providing dramatic changes in other-worldly vegetation and wildlife day by day. Being a sky island, Kilimanjaro’s high altitudes have also created habitats for unique life forms that can only be found on a few other peaks in the world, such as the delicate elephant flower and peculiar Kilimanjaro tree. As you ascend the mountain you will notice a change in scenery and ecology, a factor which makes climbing Mount Kilimanjaro constantly exciting and novel.

Paradoxically, Mount Kilimanjaro is both remote and accessible. Its accessibility plays a large role in the amount of explorers attempting to reach the summit. Technically, it is the easiest climb of the Seven Summits – the highest peaks of the 7 continents. However, this does not mean it is without risk and one must be physically and mentally prepared to ascend the mountain.

Upon reaching the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and standing on the “roof of Africa”, you will gain a different perspective of the world. This is no ordinary accomplishment and the impossible is now seen as possible.

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Written by

Joseph Cameron

NYC based, South African transplant, Joey Cameron, is a freelance writer, travel-nerd, natural food enthusiast, personal trainer and brand owner. Characterised by an insatiable hunger for passport stamps and a somewhat strange (non)sense of humour, he can found regularly scanning the skies for ways to up, up and getaway.